It's a near ideal scene: a family riding a train, traversing hundreds of miles in a few hours. As the train chugs along at incredible speeds, they cross mountains,valleys, chug through forests and along beaches. The son begins to tug at his fathers curtail, accidentally knocking his dad into someone passing through the hallway.
No problem right?
Wrong. A group of hackers from the Netherlands used a technique that was popularized at DEFCON 15 to develop means to clone England's "Oyster" transit card. The cards use a microchip from the manufacturer "Mifare". A brief scan of a legitimate card reader (I.E, turnstiles to access the London Underground) reveal the cryptographic key that reads and authorizes a card to be used. Once the attacker uploads this key to his/her laptop, they are carrying a portable card reader wherever they go. This means that if the attacker is able to interrupt your cards RFID signature, they are able to clone your card onto a card of their choosing. This allows them to consume the balance of your card.
The Mifare chips are also used in numerous secure site authentication methods, which have drawn attention from the British government. When it was revealed that the same technology could be used to gain forged access to nuclear and governmental sites, they announced they would be replacing over 100,000 Mifare "Secure" RFID smart cards. At a cost of over 60 euros a piece, this security screw up could end up costing the British government over 3 million US dollars.
These events lead me wondering, how long before:
A.Credit Cards Have RFID
B.Hackers Crack It
C.Cloned Credit Cards
D.Aluminum Plated Wallets
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